Вальтер Скотт
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV

In a short time, however, the active spirit of Napoleon led him to tire of a scene, where his vanity might for a time be gratified, but which soon palled on his imagination as empty and frivolous. He sent for De Pradt, the Archbishop of Malines, whose talents he desired to employ as ambassador at Warsaw, and in a singular style of diplomacy, thus gave him his commission: "I am about to make a trial of you. You may believe I did not send for you here to say mass" (which ceremony the Archbishop had performed that morning.) "You must keep a great establishment; have an eye to the women, their influence is essential in that country. You know Poland; you have read Rulhières. For me, I go to beat the Russians; time is flying; we must have all over by the end of September; perhaps we are even already too late. I am tired to death here; I have been here eight days playing the courtier to the Empress of Austria." He then threw out indistinct hints of compelling Austria to quit her hold on Galicia, and accept an indemnification in Illyria, or otherwise remain without any. As to Prussia, he avowed his intention, when the war was over, to ruin her completely, and to strip her of Silesia. "I am on my way to Moscow," he added. "Two battles there will do the business. I will burn Thoula; the Emperor Alexander will come on his knees, and then is Russia disarmed. All is ready, and only waits my presence. Moscow is the heart of their empire; besides, I make war at the expense of the blood of the Poles. I will leave fifty thousand of my Frenchmen in Poland. I will convert Dantzic into another Gibraltar. I will give fifty millions a-year in subsidies to the Poles. I can afford the expense. Without Russia be included, the Continental System would be mere folly. Spain costs me very dear; without her I should be master of the world; but when I am so, my son will have nothing to do but to keep his place, and it does not require to be very clever to do that. Go, take your instructions from Maret."¹⁰⁸

The complete confidence of success implied in these disjointed, yet striking expressions, was general through all who approached Napoleon's person, whether French or foreigners. The young military men looked on the expedition against Russia as on a hunting party which was to last for two months. The army rushed to the fatal country, all alive with the hopes of plunder, pensions, and promotion. All the soldiers who were not included railed against their own bad luck, or the partiality of Napoleon, for detaining them from so triumphant an enterprise.¹⁰⁹

WAR WITH RUSSIA

Meantime, Buonaparte made a last attempt at negotiation, or rather to discover what was the state of the Emperor Alexander's mind, who, while he was himself surrounded by sovereigns, as the sun by planets, remained lonely in his own orbit, collecting around him means of defence, which, immense as they were, seemed scarcely adequate to the awful crisis in which he stood. General Lauriston had been despatched to Wilna, to communicate definitively with Alexander. Count de Narbonne, already noticed as the most adroit courtier of the Tuileries was sent to invite the Czar to meet Napoleon at Dresden, in hopes that, in a personal treaty, the two sovereigns might resume their habits of intimacy, and settle between themselves what they had been unable to arrange through their ambassadors. But Lauriston could obtain no audience of the Emperor, and the report of Narbonne was decidedly warlike. He found the Russians neither depressed nor elated, but arrived at the general conclusion, that war was become inevitable, and therefore determined to submit to its evils, rather than avoid them by a dishonourable peace.¹¹⁰

CHAPTER LVII

Napoleon's Plan of the Campaign against Russia – Understood and provided against by Barclay de Tolly, the Russian Generalissimo – Statement of the Grand French Army – Of the Grand Russian Army – Disaster on the river Wilia – Difficulties of the Campaign, on the part of the French – Their defective Commissariat and Hospital Department – Cause of Buonaparte's determination to advance – His forced marches occasion actual delay – Napoleon remains for some days at Wilna – Abbé de Pradt – His intrigues to excite the Poles – Neutralized by Napoleon's engagements with Austria – An attempt to excite Insurrection in Lithuania also fails.

In ancient history, we often read of the inhabitants of the northern regions, impelled by want, and by the desire of exchanging their frozen deserts for the bounties of a more genial climate, breaking forth from their own bleak regions, and, with all the terrors of an avalanche, bursting down upon those of the south. But it was reserved for our generation to behold the invasion reversed, and to see immense hosts of French, Germans, and Italians, leaving their own fruitful, rich, and delightful regions, to carry at once conquest and desolation through the dreary pine forests, swamps, and barren wildernesses of Scythia. The philosopher, Hume, dedicated an essay to consider, whether futurity might expect a new inundation of barbarian conquerors; a fresh "living cloud of war," from the northern hives; but neither to him nor any one else had it occurred to anticipate the opposite danger, of combined hundreds of thousands from the fairest and most fertile regions of Europe, moving at the command of a single man, for the purpose of bereaving the wildest country of Europe of its national independence. "Russia," said Buonaparte, in one of his Delphic proclamations, "is dragged on by her fate; her destiny must be accomplished. Let us march; let us cross the Niemen; let us carry war into her territories. The second war of Poland will be as glorious to the French arms as the first; but the peace we shall conclude shall carry with it its guarantee, and terminate that haughty influence which Russia has exercised for more than fifty years on the affairs of Europe."¹¹¹ Napoleon's final object was here spoken out; it was to thrust Russia back upon her Asiatic dominions, and deprive her of her influence in European politics.

The address of the Russian Emperor to his troops was in a different, more manly, rational, and intelligible strain, devoid of those blustering attempts at prophetic eloquence, which are in bad taste when uttered, and, if they may acquire some credit among the vulgar when followed by a successful campaign, become the most bitter of satires, if fortune does not smile on the vaticination. Alexander enforced on his subjects the various efforts which he had made for the preservation of peace, but which had proved fruitless. "It now only remains," he said, "after invoking the Almighty Being who is the witness and defender of the true cause, to oppose our forces to those of the enemy. It is unnecessary to recall to generals, officers, and soldiers, what is expected from their loyalty and courage; the blood of the ancient Sclavonians circulates in their veins. Soldiers, you fight for your religion, your liberty, and your native land. Your Emperor is amongst you, and God is the enemy of the aggressor."¹¹²

The sovereigns who addressed their troops, each in his own peculiar mode of exhortation, had their different plans for the campaign. Buonaparte's was formed on his usual system of warfare. It was his primary object to accumulate a great force on the centre of the Russian line, to break it asunder, and cut off effectually as many divisions, as activity could surprise and overmaster in such a struggle. To secure the possession of large towns, if possible one of the two capitals, Petersburgh or Moscow; and to grant that which he doubted not would by that time be humbly craved, the terms of a peace which should strip Russia of her European influence, and establish a Polish nation in her bosom, composed of provinces rent from her own dominions – would have crowned the undertaking.

BARCLAY DE TOLLY

The tactics of Napoleon had, by long practice, been pretty well understood, by those studious of military affairs. Barclay de Tolly, whom Alexander had made his generalissimo, a German by birth, a Scotchman by extraction, had laid down and recommended to the Czar, with whom he was in great favour, a plan of foiling Buonaparte upon his own system. He proposed that the Russians should first show only so much opposition on the frontier of their country, as should lay the invaders under the necessity of marching with precaution and leisure; that they should omit no means of annoying their communications, and disturbing the base on which they rested, but should carefully avoid every thing approaching to a general action.¹¹³ On this principle it was proposed to fall back before the invaders, refusing to engage in any other action than skirmishes, and those upon advantage, until the French lines of communication, extended to an immeasurable length, should become liable to be cut off even by the insurgent peasantry. In the meanwhile, as the French became straitened in provisions, and deprived of recruits and supplies, the Russians were to be reinforcing their army, and at the same time refreshing it. Thus, it was the object of this plan of the campaign not to fight the French forces, until the bad roads, want of provisions, toilsome marches, diseases, and loss in skirmishes, should have deprived the invading army of all its original advantages of numbers, spirit, and discipline. This procrastinating system of tactics suited Russia the better, that her preparations for defensive war were very far from being completed, and that it was important to gain time to receive arms and other supplies from England, as well as, by making peace with the Turks, to obtain the disposal of the large army now engaged upon the Danube.

At the same time it was easy to foresee, that so long a retreat, together with the desolation occasioned to the Russian territory by the presence of an invading army, might wear out the patience of the Russian soldiery. Some advantageous position was therefore to be selected, and skilfully fortified before hand, in which a stand might be made, like that of Lord Wellington in the lines at Torres Vedras. For this purpose, a very large fortified camp was prepared at Drissa, on the river Düna, or Dwina, which, supposing the object of the French to have been St. Petersburgh, would have been well calculated to cover that capital. On the other hand, were the French to move on Moscow, which proved their final determination, the intrenchments at Drissa were of no importance.

We must speak of the immense hosts combined under Buonaparte, as if they were all constituent parts of one army, although the theatre of war which they occupied was not less than an hundred and twenty French leagues in extent of front.

Macdonald commanded the left wing of the whole French army, which consisted of above 30,000 men: his orders were to penetrate into Courland, and threaten the right flank of the Russians; and, if it were found advisable, to besiege Riga, or at least to threaten that important sea-port. The extreme right of Napoleon's army was placed towards Pinsk, in Volhynia, and consisted almost entirely of the Austrian auxiliaries, under Prince Schwartzenberg. They were opposed to the Russian army under General Tormazoff, which had been destined to protect Volhynia. This was a false step of Napoleon, adopted, doubtless, to allay the irritable jealousy of his ally Austria, on the subject of freeing and restoring the kingdom of Poland. The natives of Volhynia, it must be remembered, are Poles, subjected to the yoke of Russia. Had French troops, or those of the grand duchy of Warsaw, been sent amongst them, the Volhynians would probably have risen in arms to vindicate their liberty. But they had little temptation to do so when they only saw the Austrians, by whose arms Galicia was yet detained in subjection, and whose Emperor was as liable as Alexander himself to suffer from the resuscitation of Polish independence.

Betwixt the left wing, commanded by Macdonald, and the right under Schwartzenberg, lay the grand French army, divided into three masses. Buonaparte himself moved with his Guards, of which Bessières commanded the cavalry, the Maréschals Lefebvre and Mortier the infantry. The Emperor had also under his immediate command and corps d'armée, commanded by Davoust, Oudinot, and Ney; which, with the divisions of cavalry under Grouchy, Montbrun, and Nansouty, amounting, it was computed, to no fewer than 250,000 men, were ready to rush forward and overpower the opposite army of Russians, called the Army of the West. King Jerome of Westphalia, with the divisions of Junot, Poniatowski, and Regnier, and the cavalry of Latour Maubourg, forming a mass of about 80,000 men, were destined in the same manner to move forward on the Russian second, or supporting army. Lastly, a central army, under Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy, had it in charge to press between the first and second Russian army, increase their separation, render their junction impossible, and act against either, or both, as opportunity should arise. Such was the disposition of the invading force. Murat, King of Naples, well-known by his old name of "Le Beau Sabreur," commanded the whole cavalry of this immense army.

On the other hand, the grand Russian army, commanded by the Emperor in person, and more immediately by Barclay de Tolly, advanced its headquarters as far as Wilna; not that it was their purpose to defend Lithuania, or its capital, but to oblige the French to manœuvre, and so show their intentions. It amounted to 120,000 men. On the north, towards Courland, this grand army communicated with a division of 10,000 men, under Count Essen; and on the south held communication, but on a line rather too much prolonged, with the second army under the gallant Prince Bagration, one of the best and bravest of the Russian generals. Platoff, the celebrated Hettman, or captain-general of the Cossacks, attended this second army, with 12,000 of his children of the desert. Independent of these, Bagration's army might amount to 80,000 men. On the extreme left, and watching the Austrians, from whom perhaps no very vigorous measures were apprehended, was Tormazoff, with what was termed the army of Volhynia, amounting to 20,000 men. Two armies of reserve were in the course of being formed at Novogorod and Smolensk. They might amount to about 20,000 men each.¹¹⁴

Thus, on the whole, the Russians entered upon the campaign with a sum total of 260,000 men, opposed to 470,000, or with an odds of almost one half against them. But during the course of the war, Russia raised reinforcements of militia and volunteers to greatly more than the balance which was against her at the commencement.

MARCH UPON THE NIEMEN

The grand imperial army marched upon the river Niemen in its three overwhelming masses; the King of Westphalia upon Grodno, the Viceroy of Italy on Pilony, and the Emperor himself on a point called Nagaraiski, three leagues beyond Kowno. When the head of Napoleon's columns reached the river which rolled silently along under cover of immense forests on the Russian side, he advanced in person to reconnoitre the banks, when his horse stumbled and threw him. "A bad omen," said a voice, but whether that of the Emperor or one of his suite, could not be distinguished; "a Roman would return." On the Russian bank appeared only a single Cossack, who challenged the first party of French that crossed the river, and demanded their purpose in the territories of Russia. "To beat you, and to take Wilna," was the reply. The patrol withdrew, nor was another soldier seen.¹¹⁵

A dreadful thunder-storm was the welcome which they received in this wild land; and shortly after the Emperor received intelligence that the Russians were falling back on every side, and manifested an evident intention to evacuate Lithuania without a battle. The Emperor urged forward his columns with even more than his usual promptitude, eager to strike one of those formidable blows by which he was wont to annihilate his enemy at the very commencement of the campaign. This gave rise to an event more ominous than the fall of his horse, or the tempest which received him on the banks of the Niemen. The river Wilia being swollen with rain, and the bridges destroyed, the Emperor, impatient of the obstacle, commanded a body of Polish cavalry to cross by swimming. They did not hesitate to dash into the river. But ere they reached the middle of the stream, the irresistible torrent broke their ranks, and they were swept down and lost almost to a man, before the eyes of Napoleon, to whom some of them in the last struggle turned their faces, exclaiming, "Vive l'Empereur!" The spectators were struck with horror.¹¹⁶ But much greater would that feeling have been, could they have known that the fate of this handful of brave men was but an anticipation of that which impended over the hundreds of thousands, who, high in health and hope, were about to rush upon natural and artificial obstacles, no less formidable and no less insurmountable than the torrent which had swept away their unfortunate advanced guard.

While his immense masses were traversing Lithuania, Napoleon fixed his headquarters at Wilna,¹¹⁷ the ancient capital of that province, where he began to experience the first pressure of those difficulties which attended his gigantic undertaking. We must pause to detail them; for they tend to show the great mistake of those who have followed Napoleon himself in supposing, that the Russian expedition was a hopeful and well-conceived plan, which would certainly have proved successful, if not unexpectedly disconcerted by the burning of Moscow, and the severity of the weather, by which the French armies were compelled to retreat into Poland.

We have elsewhere mentioned, that, according to Napoleon's usual style of tactics, the French troops set out upon their campaign with bread and biscuit for a few days, and when that was expended (which, betwixt waste and consumption, usually happened before the calculated period,) they lived on such supplies as they could collect in the country, by the means of marauding or pillage, which they had converted into a regular system. But Napoleon had far too much experience and prudence to trust, amid the wastes of Russia, to a system of supplies, which had sufficed for maintenance of the army in the rich fields of Austria. He knew well that he was plunging with half a million of men into inhospitable deserts, where Charles XII. could not find subsistence for twenty thousand Swedes. He was aware, besides, of the impolicy there would be in harassing the Lithuanians by marauding exactions. To conciliate them was a great branch of his plan, for Lithuania, in respect to Russia, was a conquered province, into which Napoleon hoped to inspire the same desire of independence which animated Poland, and thus to find friends and allies among the very subjects of his enemy. The utmost exertion of his splendid talents, putting into activity the full extent of his almost unlimited power, had been, therefore, turned towards collecting immense magazines of provisions, and for securing the means of transporting them along with the army. His strong and impassioned genius was, for months before the expedition, directed to this important object, which he pressed upon his generals with the utmost solicitude. "For masses like those we are about to move, if precautions be not taken, the grain of no country can suffice," he said, in one part of his correspondence. – In another, "All the provision-waggons must be loaded with flour, rice, bread, vegetables, and brandy, besides what is necessary for the hospital service. The result of my movements will assemble 400,000 men on a single point. There will be nothing to expect from the country, and it will be necessary to have every thing within ourselves."

These undeniable views were followed up by preparations, which, abstractedly considered, must be regarded as gigantic. The cars and waggons, which were almost innumerable, destined for the carriage of provisions, were divided into battalions and squadrons. Each battalion of cars was capable of transporting 6000 quintals of flour; each squadron of heavy waggons nearly 4800 quintals; besides the immense number dedicated to the service of the engineers and the hospitals, or engaged in transporting besieging materiel and pontoons.

DEFECTIVE COMMISSARIAT

This sketch must convince the reader that Napoleon had in his eye, from the outset, the prospect of deficiency in supplying his army with provisions, and that he had bent his mind to the task of overcoming it by timely preparation. But all his precautions proved totally inadequate. It was found a vain attempt to introduce military discipline amidst the carters and waggon-drivers; and when wretched roads were encumbered with fallen horses and broken carriages, when the soldiers and wain-drivers began to plunder the contents of the cars and waggons which they were appointed to protect and to manage, the confusion became totally inextricable. Very far from reaching Lithuania, where their presence was so essential, few of the heavy waggons ever attained the banks of the Vistula, and almost none proceeded to the Niemen. Weeks and months after the army had passed, some of the light cars and herds of cattle did arrive, but comparatively few in number, and in most miserable plight. The soldiers were, therefore, at the very commencement of the campaign, compelled to have recourse to their usual mode of supplying themselves, by laying contributions on the country; which, while they continued in Poland, the immense fertility of the soil enabled it to supply. But matters became greatly worse after entering Lithuania, which the Russians had previously endeavoured to strip of all that could benefit the French.

Thus, in the very first march from the Niemen and the Wilia, through a country which was regarded as friendly, and before they had seen an enemy, the immense army of Napoleon were incurring great loss themselves, and doing infinite damage to the country on which they lived at free cost, in spite of all the measures which Buonaparte had devised, and all the efforts he had made to maintain them from their own stores.

This uncertain mode of subsistence was common to the whole army, though its consequences were especially disastrous in particular corps. Ségur¹¹⁸ informs us, that the armies under Eugene and Davoust were regular in their work of collecting contributions, and distributing them among the soldiers; so that their system of marauding was less burdensome to the country, and more advantageous to themselves. On the other hand, the Westphalian, and other German auxiliaries, under King Jerome, having learned the lesson of pillaging from the French, and wanting, according to Ségur, the elegant manner of their teachers, practised the arts they had acquired with a coarse rapacity, which made the French ashamed of their pupils and imitators. Thus the Lithuanians, terrified, alienated, and disgusted, with the injuries they sustained, were far from listening to the promises of Napoleon, or making common cause with him against Russia, who had governed them kindly, and with considerable respect to their own habits and customs.

IMMENSE LOSSES OF THE ARMY

But this was not the only evil. The direct loss sustained by the French army was very great. In the course of the very first marches from the Niemen and the Wilia, not less than 10,000 horses, and numbers of men were left dead on the road. Of the young conscripts especially, many died of hunger and fatigue; and there were instances of some who committed suicide, rather than practise the cruel course of pillage by which only they could subsist; and of others, who took the same desperate step, from remorse at having participated in such cruelties. Thousands turned stragglers, and subsisted by robbery. The Duke of Treviso, who followed the march of the grand army, informed Napoleon, that, from the Niemen to the Wilia, he had seen nothing but ruined habitations abandoned, carriages overturned, broke open and pillaged, corpses of men and horses – all the horrible appearances, in short, which present themselves in the route of a defeated army.¹¹⁹

Those who desired to flatter Buonaparte, ascribed this loss to the storm of rain, which fell at the time they were entering Lithuania. But summer rain, whatever its violence, does not destroy the horses of an army by hundreds and thousands. That which does destroy them, and renders those that survive almost unfit for service during the campaign, and incapable of bearing the hardships of winter, is hard work, forced marches, want of corn or dry fodder, and the supporting them on the green crop which is growing in the fields. It was now the season when, of all others, a commander, who values the serviceable condition of his army, will avoid such enterprises as require from his cavalry hard work and forced marches. In like manner, storms of summer rain do not destroy the foot soldiers exposed to them, more than other men; but forced marches on bad roads, and through a country unprovided with shelter, and without provisions, must ruin infantry, since every man, who, from fatigue, or from having straggled too far in quest of food, chances to be left behind, is left exposed without shelter to the effects of the climate, and if he cannot follow and rejoin his corps, has no resource but to lie down and die.

The provisions of the hospital department had been as precarious as those of the commissariat. Only 6000 patients could be accommodated in the hospitals at Wilna, which is too small a proportion for an army of 400,000 men, even if lying in quarters in a healthy and peaceful country, where one invalid in fifty is a most restricted allowance; but totally inadequate to the numbers which actually required assistance, as well from the maladies introduced by fatigue and bad diet, as by the casualties of war. Although no battle, and scarce a skirmish had been fought, 25,000 patients encumbered the hospitals of Wilna; and the villages were filled with soldiers who were dying for want of medical assistance. The King of Westphalia must be exempted from this general censure; his army was well provided with hospitals, and lost much fewer men than the others. This imperfection of the hospital department was an original defect in the conception of the expedition, and continued to influence it most unfavourably from beginning to end.

Napoleon sometimes repined under these losses and calamities, sometimes tried to remedy them by threats against marauders, and sometimes endeavoured to harden himself against the thought of the distress of his army, as an evil which must be endured, until victory should put an end to it. But repining and anger availed nothing; denunciations against marauders could not reasonably be executed upon men who had no other means of subsistence; and it was impossible to obtain a victory over an enemy who would not risk a battle.

The reader may here put the natural question, Why Buonaparte, when he found the stores, which he considered as essential to the maintenance of his army, had not reached the Vistula, should have passed on, instead of suspending his enterprise until he was provided with those means, which he had all along judged essential to its success? He might in this manner have lost time, but he would have saved his men and horses, and avoided distressing a country which he desired to conciliate. The truth is, that Napoleon had suffered his sound and cooler judgment to be led astray, by strong and ardent desire to finish the war by one brilliant battle and victory. The hope of surprising the Emperor Alexander at Wilna, of defeating his grand army, or at least cutting off some of its principal corps, resembled too much many of his former exploits, not to have captivation for him. For this purpose, and with this expectation, forced marches were to be undertaken, from the Vistula even to the Dwina and Dnieper; the carts, carriages, cattle, all the supplies brought from France, Italy, and Germany, were left behind, the difficulties of the enterprise forgotten, and nothing thought of but the expectation of finding the enemy at unawares, and totally destroying him at one blow. The fatal consequence of the forced marches we have stated; but what may appear most strange is, that Napoleon, who had recourse to this expeditious and reckless advance, solely to surprise his enemy by an unexpected attack, rather lost than gained that advantage of time, to procure which he had made such sacrifices. This will appear from the following detail: —

The army which had been quartered on the Vistula, broke up from thence about the 1st of June, and advanced in different columns, and by forced marches upon the Niemen, which it reached upon different points, but chiefly near Kowno, upon the 23d, and commenced the passage on the 24th of the same month. From the Vistula to the Niemen is about 250 wersts, equal to 235 or 240 English miles; from Kowno, on the banks of the Niemen, to Vitepsk, on the Dwina, is nearly the same distance. The whole space might be marched by an army, moving with its baggage, in the course of forty marches, at the rate of twelve miles a-day; yet the traversing this distance took, as we shall presently see, four days more, notwithstanding the acceleration of forced marches, than would have been occupied by an army moving at an ordinary and easy rate, and carrying its own supplies along with its columns. The cause why this overhaste should have been attended with actual delay, was partly owing to the great mass of troops which were to be supplied by the principle of the marauding system, partly to the condition of the country, which was doomed to afford them; and partly, it may be, to the political circumstances which detained Napoleon twenty precious days at Wilna. The first reason is too obvious to need illustration, as a flying army of 20,000 men bears comparatively light on the resources of a country, and may be pushed through it in haste; but those immense columns, whose demands were so unbounded, could neither move rapidly, nor have their wants hastily supplied. But, besides, in a country like Lithuania, the march could not be regular, and it was often necessary to suspend the advance; thus losing in some places the time which great exertion had gained in others. Wildernesses and pathless forests were necessarily to be traversed in the utmost haste, as they afforded nothing for the marauders, on whose success the army depended for support. To make amends for this, it was necessary to halt the troops for one day, or even more, in the richest districts, or in the neighbourhood of large towns, to give leisure and opportunity to recruit their supplies at the expense of the country. Thus the time gained by the forced marches was lost in inevitable delays; and the advance, though attended with such tragic consequences to the soldier, did not secure the advantage which the general proposed to attain.